Australian Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS Australia)

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Full title

Australian Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS Australia)

Description

The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) is an international federation of organisations and people sharing a vision to make marine biogeographic data, from all over the world, freely available over the internet. It functions as a web-based provider of global geo-referenced information on marine species. It provides a single entry point to query expert databases on species and habitats and provides a variety of tools for visualising relationships between marine species and their environment. OBIS is also the information component of the Census of Marine Life Program.
OBIS Australia seeks to advance the goals of OBIS in the Australian region, as one of a growing network of Regional OBIS Nodes. Specifically, the aims of OBIS Australia are:
-- to encourage the sharing of marine species data from the Australian region into the OBIS international data network
-- to enable users to search for marine data from the international OBIS network users.
OBIS Australia was initially created as a partnership between the National Oceans Office (Department of the Environment and Water Resources) and CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, supported in its start-up phase by funding from the U.S. Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, administered via the international OBIS Secretariat, as an operational component of the Census of Marine Life. It is currently administered by CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research.